Vera

Chara knows how to survive. After her mother's death twelve years ago, she learned to shrink her life into something manageable—running the family farm, caring for her aging father, photographing livestock instead of chasing the artistic career she once dreamed of. She calls it responsibility. She calls it wisdom. She doesn't call it what it really is: fear wearing the mask of practicality.When a solo hiking trip ends in a catastrophic fall, Chara finds herself trapped on a canyon ledge with a shattered leg, broken ribs, and no way to signal for rescue. Her phone is destroyed. Her glasses are gone. And the only living thing within reach is a small hosta plant growing from a crack in the stone.Vera has known patience her entire existence. Torn from a Colorado nursery by a tornado and deposited in this impossible place, she has spent seven years growing where nothing should grow, trusting in the Gardener who plants where He will. She has waited without knowing what she was waiting for—until the day a broken woman falls from the sky and changes everything.What begins as proximity becomes something neither could have imagined: a telepathic communion that bridges the vast gulf between plant consciousness and human awareness. Through their deepening bond, Chara relives the memories she has spent years avoiding—the dreams she abandoned, the love she let walk away, the faith she stopped reaching for. And Vera discovers that her years of obscure endurance were preparation for the most important purpose of her life.Vera is a novel about the transformative power of being truly witnessed. It explores what happens when we stop hiding from our own lives and start reaching toward the light we were meant to grow toward.